


The Legacy of Death

by Anonymous00



Category: Firefly, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Adventure, Crossover, Dark!Harry, Drama, F/M, Gray Harry, Immortal!Harry, Master of Death, Violence, super!Harry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-13
Updated: 2015-10-14
Packaged: 2018-04-03 23:49:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4119097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anonymous00/pseuds/Anonymous00
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>By 2518, Harry Potter had naught left in the 'Verse but his family. Of course, some family members are more... interesting than others. For the Master of Death, it's just another day in the Black.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Life of Death

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a crossover between Harry Potter and Firefly. It is canon compliant to Harry Potter, including the epilogue with one minor alteration. Harry did not discard the Resurrection Stone or the Elder Wand, but was still carrying them when he went to sleep after the battle. Firefly will have mostly canon backstory.
> 
> If you've read this before, you may notice I've changed the pairings and plan for the story somewhat. That's my right as the author. Don't like it? Go away.

**July 2077**

Harry watched the live feed from the trial with the blank face for which his alter ego was somewhat infamous, but on the inside, he was seething. During the war, he’d come to hate all mundanes with more ferocity than he’d ever hated Voldemort. During and after the Purge, he’d been ready and willing to kill every single man, woman, and child on the planet. After his four-year killing spree, he’d mostly stopped caring about all of them, focusing instead on saving the history of his people and making sure their collective wealth never reached their murderers’ greedy hands.

Then the exodus had come, and he’d switched his focus to getting the hell off Earth while maintaining his complete autonomy from the mundanes. That had led to his alter ego, Henry de’Ath, three years of frantic schooling, and his job with the GEA, which he tolerated only by constantly reminding himself that he was only using them.

That had worked out pretty well. In the twenty-three years since he’d graduated from the Academy, Henry de’Ath had worked his way up to one of the top positions in the GEA. He was technically department head for the Engineering Sect but was frequently called to consult with the Terraforming Sect given his diverse skillset. More importantly, Harry Potter had been constructing his own private arc back home, to which he apparated whenever he wasn’t on duty, and he was very smug about the fact that his was better and further along than the GEA arcs.

He was doing extremely well for himself, particularly as he remained the most wanted individual in the entire world, even if they’d long since given up actively looking for him. Some thought him to be dead, having killed himself when setting off that last bomb. Others were relatively convinced that he _couldn’t_ die, since he’d been killed many times during the war and after, in situations where there were plenty of witnesses and sometimes video evidence. Either way, he was still listed as extremely dangerous and not to be approached but to immediately call for backup if he was ever sighted. So far, that hadn’t happened since ’31.

It had been fifty years now, since the last of his people had died. Fifty years since there had been a living human that he cared about. Fifty years since he’d felt that twinge in his heart and mind that had so often sent him off against impossible odds to rescue random strangers as well as loved ones. Fifty years…

It was back.

Standing there in the executive lounge at the Chinese Arc Facility where he’d been stationed for the last two and a half years, watching the live broadcast of Katerine Halle’s trial as she was sentenced to be executed for the crime of treason, Harry felt that almost-forgotten twinge. Though he was cursing vociferously in his mind and fighting between panic and fury at his stupid conscience, he watched as the attractive young woman impassively listened to the judgment, her face giving no more indication of her emotions than Harry’s own.

The problem, Harry deduced, was the reason that Katerine had been convicted of treason. Her family was living in one of the poorer regions – the slums of a planet already filled with slums – and they were all beginning to succumb to one of the lung diseases that had become so common thanks to the pollution created by the Arc Project. She’d been attempting to smuggle an air scrubber out of the Arc Facility to take back to her family’s home. It was a relatively small thing, but stealing from the Arc Project was treason. 

Yep. That was the problem. Between her doing it to try to save her family and the fact that the crime had only been determined to automatically be treason after Harry had framed that bloke for his crimes eleven years ago, he knew that he was in trouble. The conscience that he’d forgotten he had was coming back with a vengeance with his empathy for a woman trying to save her family and his guilt for having some hand in her predicament.

The fact that she was a mundane, regrettably, did not seem to be relieving his need to help her.

And then the panel of judges concluded the trial by vindictively telling Katerine that, because of their relation to a traitor, her family would be moved to the bottom of the boarding list with the criminals. They didn’t mention that it was as good as assigning them a death sentence given their already precarious health. And Katerine’s composure finally broke. Her shoulders slumped, her brightly defiant eyes dimmed, and tears began to trail silently down her face.

Harry growled internally as his hero complex roared fully to life. This right here just proved that there was still some Gryffindor inside him. After the Purge, he’d never imagined that he’d feel anything but pleasure at the thought of a mundane’s death. Any mundane. And now he wanted to save one. Ginny would probably be proud, he thought uncharitably. Damn that woman. Fifty years dead, and she was still getting to him.

There were a few cheers in the room as the woman’s sentence was read, but it wasn’t as overwhelming as it might have been. Katerine Halle had worked in the Engineering Sect within this facility. People here had known her, even if she hadn’t been above the grunt stage. She was very smart. It had been obvious to Harry and most of the others that she would go far. And now she was going to die for doing something stupid, but admittedly noble.

Henry de’Ath just shook his head slightly and turned to leave the room. Katerine’s sentence was to be carried out tomorrow. Harry still had two hours of his shift to finish, and then he was going to see if he remembered how to be a hero.

****

**o*O*o**

Harry had spent the six hours after the culmination of his shift plotting, trying to decide exactly how he wanted to play his rescue. Given the global recognition of Katerine’s crime and sentence, there was no way to do this quietly. Even if he managed to make it look like Katerine had carried it all out on her own, it was going to be a huge ordeal.

Perhaps it was time to send a message to the Alliance that they weren’t as invincible as they liked to believe… This was the perfect opportunity.

With that in mind, Harry decided to do this in style. He clothed himself in black robes with a black cloak that would have made Snape envious for its ability to billow impressively. He didn’t bother arming himself. He was going to do this as a wizard.

The personal agenda worked into the rescue helped him to feel like less of a Gryffindor fool as he apparated to Teiton Prison, the highest security prison in the world, to liberate one foolish girl with more heart than brain – a condition he himself had suffered in his youth.

His natural invisibility – a trait he’d acquired upon mastering death – a silencing charm, and a series of apparations could have taken him to her cell without any of the guards even knowing that he was there, but Harry was going for a loud and obnoxious statement here – besides, he did kind of miss killing off mundanes with abandon.

“Hold and identify yourself!” came a shout as he approached the main gate of the prison, his cloak billowing around him, twisting shadows clinging to him unnaturally, his face shrouded by his deep hood.

Harry drew to a stop and slowly raised his hands to ease down his hood, revealing his true face to the mundanes for the first time in forty-six years. “My name is Harry Potter,” he said in a loud, clear voice intended to carry.

The guard that had addressed him stopped in his tracks and his jaw fell open as he gaped at the man who’d become more legend and myth than fact to the younger generations. It lasted only two seconds before the guard’s gun snapped up and trained on Harry. “On your knees, hands behind your head!” he shouted. He wore a breathing mask to protect him from the befouled air that the prisoners were forced to breathe constantly.

Harry chuckled darkly, and slowly shook his head. Then he apparated. During the war – hell, even when he’d been an auror – one of Harry’s signature moves was apparating around the battlefield, appearing behind his enemies and killing them before apparating away again. After absorbing the Hallows, apparation had come naturally to him – almost without thought. He could move silently, over any global distance, and it never seemed to tire him in the slightest. There were some perks to being the Master of Death, after all.

Green light flared and the guard’s life was snuffed out before he could begin to realize what was happening. Shouts sounded around the area as the guards close enough to see what had happened realized that they were under attack and began to call out in alarm. Harry disappeared and reappeared behind a guard on one of the lookout posts, and he too died in a flash of green. Another perk as the Master of Death was that that particular spell was as natural as breathing. He had only to decide to kill and the curse was unleashed.

Three more guards fell before they even started shooting at him. Bullets ricocheted around the compound, following the green light but never arriving at their destination before Harry was already in another.

Green death washed over the grounds as the bodies began to pile up and Harry felt himself growing increasingly focused, his power singing through him, his magic soaking the surrounding area as the Master of Death claimed soul after soul without hesitation.

Lights and sirens flashed as someone managed to hit an alarm, but Harry could barely hear it over the shouts and screams of fearful mundanes fighting a hopeless fight for their worthless lives. He gloried in the slaughter that he had not felt in so many years. For every life he took, he remembered the faces of the dying as the insidious disease created by the mundanes tore through the magical population until not a single man, woman, or child apart from Harry himself yet carried a single drop of magical blood. Were he not immortal, Harry would have sabotaged the mundanes’ efforts to leave Earth and he would have watched them die on their doomed world just as he had been forced to watch his own people die. But he was immortal, and he’d rather live among mundanes than spend millennia alone.

Death filled Teiton Prison as Harry worked his way through it methodically until not a single living soul remained on the compound that was not behind bars.

Finally, Harry appeared before the cell he sought. He hit the pad to activate the lights inside and found himself looking into the bright blue – albeit red-rimmed – eyes of Katerine Halle herself. He wasn’t surprised that she was awake and alert. With the alarms blaring, he was sure that the entire prison was awake.

“Who are you?” she asked warily.

“Introductions later,” he said dismissively. “Come on, we’re getting out of here.”

Her eyes widened. “What?” she gasped.

He rolled his eyes. “Catch,” he instructed as he tossed her the small coin. 

She caught it automatically and vanished with a surprised look on her face. That portkey would take her to a locked room on one of his islands where she could stay until he got there to explain things.

A large part of Harry wanted to head back outside where he could feel a great number of bodies congregating. Beyond the general alarm, someone must have slipped his name up the chain of command because it sounded like there was an army gathering outside. Oh, how he’d love to go out there and slaughter them all. He was still riding the high of his previous massacre and he didn’t want to let it go. Unfortunately, that wasn’t part of the plan. He had other things to be doing now.

With a deep breath, Harry forced down the urges and made himself stay inside. Once he was under control, he walked leisurely back to the control room where he’d stopped to find Katerine’s cell. Once there, he tinkered with the controls until he had opened every cell in the prison. He doubted that many would escape with that attack force outside, but it would incite such wonderful chaos for the Alliance to sort through.

With a malicious chuckle, Harry disapparated.

He appeared at the address he’d found earlier and quickly raised a sweet air spell to follow him and keep the toxic smog out of his lungs – he didn’t have to worry about it killing him, but that didn’t make it pleasant to breathe. He entered the run-down complex of tiny apartments and located 10Q on the seventeenth floor. He knocked.

“Who is it?” came a suspicious call from within.

Harry smirked and responded, “There’s been a disturbance at Teiton Prison.”

The door cracked open and an old man’s face filled the gap. His eyes raked over Harry’s unconventional attire suspiciously. “What kind of disturbance?” he demanded.

Harry leaned forward slightly and lowered his voice, “Katerine Halle has been rescued. She’s safely beyond the reach of the Alliance. I’m here to bring her family to her. I assume you are a member of the family?”

The man’s eyes grew almost impossibly wide and he hesitated for only a couple seconds before stepping back and drawing the door open. “Get in!” he hissed.

Harry stepped passed him into the one-room apartment, casting his eyes around distastefully at the bunks tucked into one corner, the top set folded up against the wall so that the lower could comfortably be used as sofas. The small space was probably as clean as it could be given that six people were evidently crowded into an area that one would have trouble using with any large degree of comfort.

Two women and a boy of about eight were huddled on one of the beds, the child placed between them protectively. Harry was a little surprised to see the young one – children were increasingly rare these days. The women looked like probably mother and daughter, the resemblance suggesting that they were likely Katerine’s older sister and mother. The old man who’d let him in closed the door, then moved to join the two men who were standing protectively between Harry and the women and child. At a guess, the men were Katerine’s father, grandfather, and perhaps her sister’s husband? None of them looked healthy. They were all too thin, too pale, and with dark rings beneath their eyes. The elder woman coughed weakly into a handkerchief already showing spots of blood on it.

“You said Katerine has been rescued?” the old man asked desperately.

Harry nodded, “Minutes ago, yes. She is safe. I’m here to take you to meet her. We probably have a few hours before the Alliance thinks to come here, but it would be best if we didn’t linger.”

“Who are you?” the man who looked like the father inquired.

“My name is Harry Potter,” Harry admitted.

The elders gaped at him while the youngers frowned uncertainly.

“Dear Jesus, are you really?” the eldest man breathed.

Harry stared at the older man for a minute, then nodded slowly. He didn’t doubt that that man was old enough to remember the war, the Purge, and what followed. Back in the days when one couldn’t turn on the telly or walk down a street without seeing Harry’s face, warning that he was incredibly dangerous and very much wanted by the government. It kind of reminded him of that last year against Voldemort, actually. Public Enemy Number One and all that.

“Dad, he can’t be,” the father argued. “Harry Potter would be older than you.”

“Ninety-seven this month,” Harry agreed. “I’ve aged gracefully. Now, I wasn’t joking about getting out of here. I can provide you with clothes and all other basic provisions. Pack up only what you can’t bear to leave behind.”

The old man studied him for about two solid minutes, then drew himself up determinedly and nodded to the younger men. “Do as he says.”

“But, dad…” the father tried to protest.

“No, David. Do as you’re told.” He looked at him with piercing brown eyes and stressed, “For your children, David. Do it.”

David sighed heavily, but nodded, shooting a cautious look at Harry before directing the younger man and the younger woman to pack and moving to help himself.

“My name is Alexander, General Potter,” he offered one frail hand.

Harry gripped it firmly but carefully. “Just Harry’s fine, Alexander. I’m not much of a general anymore since my people were all killed.”

Alexander nodded grimly. “I protested against the Purge,” he said quietly, introspectively. “I lost friends to that atrocity. I don’t blame you for what you did after.”

Harry just nodded. He didn’t need this man’s absolution, though it would make things easier if the family didn’t view him as the homicidal lunatic that he basically was those first years after the Purge.

“Can I ask…? How did you become involved in rescuing my granddaughter?” Alexander asked cautiously.

Harry frowned and shook his head faintly. “I… I’d actually prefer to explain that after we reach our destination. I’d rather not go through it more than once.”

Alexander nodded and said no more, instead moving to order the younger people around to make sure nothing important was forgotten.

Within half an hour, the Halles had packed up as much as they could carry and they were all standing around, staring warily at Harry as they waited to learn what would happen next.

Harry drew a length of rope a little over half a meter in length from his robe and concentrated on it for a moment, sending a spark of magic into it. It flashed briefly blue, causing all of the mundanes to flinch. “Everyone take hold. This will take you to our destination.”

“What?” the youngest man demanded uncomprehendingly. His name, Harry had learned while they packed, was Everett Miller. He was, in fact, the husband of Katerine’s elder sister, Lora and father to the boy, Riyal. Katerine’s mother’s name was Hannah.

“It’s magic,” Harry explained blandly. “You have heard what I’m famous for, haven’t you?”

“That’s… That’s actually true?” Everett blinked. “I thought… I always thought those stories were embellished or… whatever.”

“It’s true,” Harry said gravely. “Now, please grab the rope. Katerine has been waiting for us long enough.”

Mention of Katerine was what finally got the six of them touching the rope. Harry activated the portkey before anyone could have second thoughts, then apparated a second behind them.

He arrived just as the family spotted Katerine and he conjured himself a chair to sit and wait while they enjoyed their tearful reunion.

Katerine wanted to know what happened. How they’d come to be there. It was Alexander who explained about Harry Potter, which inevitably drew all eyes back to where Harry was waiting patiently. He smiled when they were all focused on him.

“You can’t be Harry Potter,” Katerine complained. “You’re not any older than me.”

Harry chuckled and waved his hand to conjure a pair of sofas and a loveseat for his seven guests. After they got over gaping at the display of magic, they slowly settled themselves into the chairs. “You all must be hungry. Let me have some food brought, and then I will answer your questions.”

They nodded slowly and Harry called for a house-elf, which caused the mundanes another fright that Harry ignored. The elf took his cue from Harry and also ignored their exclamations. “Bring some supper, please. Something healthy, but not too heavy, I think.”

The elf turned and looked them all over, as though assessing their dietary needs, then vanished with a pop.

“What was that?” Hannah breathed.

“That was a house-elf,” Harry admitted. “One of the only magical creatures that your kind didn’t manage to exterminate. They work for me.”

The group exchanged looks, then flinched badly when a low table appeared in front of them, brimming with soup, bread, vegetables, pitchers of orange juice and water.

The family looked at the spread with wonder written plainly on their faces. “Real food,” Everett whispered in awe.

Harry chuckled. “Yes. I have orchards, vineyards, fields of crops, and a quite large collection of livestock. Here and in other places around the world. Thanks to magical protections against the pollution, this is some of the purest food left on the planet. Please, eat your fill. There is plenty more.”

Tentatively, the family began to serve themselves, but they were soon eating with too much dedication to make conversation. Harry didn’t begrudge them. Katerine would have had decent food fairly regularly between the Academy and the Arc Facility, both of which were filled with enough “important people” to warrant real food from the greenhouses. Most of the remaining human population lived off nutrient paste and water tainted with the chemicals used to keep it safe for drinking. Of course, it was their own sodding fault that the planet had gone to hell. Had the magicals won the war, Earth wouldn’t need to be evacuated. Of that Harry was absolutely certain. They didn’t generate pollution and they had been a very long way from overpopulating the planet. The magical world was far from perfect, but at least they hadn’t destroyed their own world.

“Where are we?” Katerine finally managed to ask.

“An island in the south pacific,” Harry admitted. “This one is called Draconis. It was one of many used for refugees during the war. I live on an island nearby.”

“And you said that the air… You can keep it clean? Magically?” Katerine asked, nearly stumbling over the last word.

Harry nodded.

“Then… Do you plan to remain on Earth?”

Harry shook his head this time. “No, Katerine, I do not. As you’ve noticed, I appear no older than you, yet I was born ninety-seven years ago. As I’m sure Alexander recalls, the mundanes – that’s you people without magic – believed that I was immortal. Well, they were right. I don’t age and I can’t die – trust me, I’ve tried every possible way, including blowing myself up with a nuclear bomb.”

Alexander gaped. “That’s true, then? You really were in New York…?”

Harry nodded grimly. “I was. I expected to die that day. When I didn’t…” He shrugged. “That’s when I decided to let go of my grudge – or the more homicidal aspects of it – and move on. Anyway. Yes, I am immortal. As far as I can tell, I’ll still be here in a million years. And no, I have no desire to spend the next million years alone but for the company of house-elves. So I will be leaving Earth as well. Not with the mundanes, however. I am building my own arc.”

That got another round of substantial gaping. Except for Riyal, who was dozing on his mother’s lap and seemed utterly unconcerned for everything now that he had a full stomach for the first time in gods knew how long.

“How is that possible?” Katerine breathed. “That’s… There are thousands of people working on each arc. You can’t possibly build one by yourself.”

“I’ve based my design off the GEA arcs,” Harry admitted. “The technical bits I’ve constructed myself. The more labor-intensive parts, my elves have put together.”

“But… How?” Katerine demanded. “How do you know anything about the arcs?”

Harry gave her a small smile and conjured up his glamor to cover him for a few seconds before dropping it again.

She choked and gaped while her family looked warily between the two of them. “Dr. de’Ath?” she finally gasped out.

Harry grinned. “Quite. When I decided that I wanted to leave Earth, I went to the Academy to learn what I’d need, then took a job with the GEA to learn more. I’ve been working on my arc for the last twenty-three years, basing it off the Arc Project, but keeping all my most innovative ideas for myself. My arc, which I’ve named the _Phoenix_ , should be completed within ten years, barring any unforeseen circumstances.”

“Harry,” Alexander said after a moment of silence, during which Katerine just stared at him with wide eyes. “Why did you involve yourself in our family?”

Harry sighed and shook his head. “Katerine’s story… affected me,” he admitted. “What she did – or rather, _attempted_ to do for her family… It reminded me of myself when I was young. I would do just about anything – sacrifice anything – to protect those that I loved. Sometimes even to protect people that I didn’t know, provided that I believed they deserved it. It is who I was.”

“I…” Alexander hesitated, then continued cautiously. “I’ve never heard about who you really are – what you really did…”

Harry frowned and sipped at his tea. “I was an orphan,” he finally admitted. “An evil wizard killed my parents when I was a baby, then proceeded to spend the next sixteen years trying to kill me. I grew up fighting him. I killed him when I was seventeen. After that, I joined the magical world’s police force. That’s what I did until the war. I had a wife and five kids.”

That last comment seemed to affect them all pretty strongly. Everett and Lora looked at their son.

“I was thirty-eight when the magical world became known to the mundanes. I did my part as was my job. In 2021, when I was forty-one, the war escalated globally. I was always… exceptionally powerful. I was a natural, though reluctant, leader. The people looked to me to lead them. For the sake of my family and my nation, I did so. When the war began to turn sour for much of the world, they began to rally under me. I led the bulk of the magical world down here after a few of our havens were bombed. It’s easier to protect the islands.

“And then the virus was released, and I couldn’t fight it. I tried. We did everything possible, but we were dying too quickly. More than a billion people died between April 2026 and October 2027. I was the only one who recovered from the illness.” His chest clenched as the memories flew behind his eyes, muted only slightly through time. “I held my baby granddaughter in my arms as she died. My children. My wife. My friends. Everyone who’d looked to me to lead them through the war. To protect them and their families. I watched them all die.”

Silence filled the room as Harry trailed off, slowly working to stuff the memories back behind his mental shields so that he could continue to function.

“Half a billion people used to occupy these islands. Half a _billion_. They were my responsibility, and I watched them all die. Did I go a little insane after that? Yeah. Show me anyone in the world who wouldn’t.”

A long moment of silence followed before Harry got himself together again. “Well, as I see it, you lot have two choices. If you want to leave, I can drop you off at any city of your choosing in the world – after I take a few basic precautions to ensure that you can’t go and blab about me. Don’t worry, I won’t harm you in the process. Or, the second choice, you can stay here and join me on my arc.

“Now, I know that this probably sounds like an easy choice, assuming that you lot aren’t pathologically opposed to magic, which you don’t seem to be. Before you decide, however, I want to make it clear that if you stay with me, you will treat me as your captain. You will abide by my rules and follow my orders. If you can’t do that, you may want to consider taking your chances out there because it would be very easy to fashion a brig on the _Phoenix_.”

“What kind of rules and orders could we expect?” David asked cautiously.

Harry shrugged, “Oh, nothing invasive. Parts of the ship will be restricted. Attempting to access them would turn out badly for you. Attempting to spy on me or sabotage my ship in any way. Attempting to contact the Alliance in any way without my permission. Any of those might get you a trip out an airlock. Essentially, the rules won’t be any stricter than you could expect from the Alliance, but you’ll be answering to me rather than some government stooge. As to the orders, if there’s trouble of any kind, you’ll be expected to do as you’re told immediately without question. Failure to comply there will probably earn you a stay in the brig. Unless it results in fatal or catastrophic events, for which I might kill you.

“Perhaps it would be easier to tell you what _won’t_ happen. If you join me, then you are my crew. I will not harm any of you without just cause. If someone else tries to harm you, I will protect you. I have no compunctions about taking life in general – I really couldn’t at this point – but I stand by those who stand by me. I am not a sadist. I have been quite happily celibate since my wife died fifty years ago, so you needn’t worry that I’ll try to take advantage of anyone in that way.

“Does all of that make sense?”

The group didn’t look greatly relieved in general, but he wasn’t going to lie to them.

“What happens when we get to Tauri?” Katerine posed. “Are you just going to make your own place on Londinium like you have here?”

“No,” Harry said immediately. “I’ve chosen a different planet, a bit further out – a few weeks travel from Londinium. I launched my own terraforming robots seven years ago.”

“Seven?” Katerine frowned. “GEA launched five years ago.”

Harry grinned, “I told you that I’m running a bit ahead of the GEA. I call my planet Elysium. It’s a temperate garden world, over sixty percent water on the surface, with gravity already comparable to Earth.”

“ _Your_ planet?” Katerine questioned curiously.

Harry just nodded. “I believe that I can hide the planet in the same way that I’m hiding these islands. Or, a similar way, at least. I’ll have plenty of time to study on the way over. I’ve scoured the whole planet for everything magical ever made, and that’ll all be coming with, so I’ll have plenty of study material. Anyway, you lot – or rather, your descendants, I suppose – will be welcome to join me on Elysium. Once the Alliance gets there and settles their world, your descendants can join them if they want. I’ll even give them a new last name if yours is still flagged as fugitives.

“Well, it’s really late – or perhaps more _early_ now, and I have to work tomorrow. For now, you have free rein of this island, but please don’t attempt to leave it. There aren’t any modern amenities here, as this was all built for witches and wizards, who don’t need things like electricity. If you run into any problems, just call for Kallus, the house-elf who brought dinner. You don’t need to raise your voice, just call his name and want him to come and he will hear you. He can bring you food when you need it, and even get a message to me if it’s urgent enough.

“I will warn you, the house-elves are not human, but they are intelligent and have feelings just like us. They enjoy working and being useful, so don’t hesitate to ask them for what you need, but don’t deliberately upset or harm them. If you do, I will give them permission to ignore you, and you’ll soon starve to death.”

Harry rose from his chair, ignoring the uneasy looks the family was exchanging at his latest death threat. “You’ll find dorms down that corridor,” he gestured to the door behind them, which opened at his silent command. “I’ll give you one week to make your choice between remaining with me and returning to the Alliance. I understand that you may wish to know me a little better before deciding. I have nothing to hide, and I give you my oath that I will not deliberately lie to any of you unless I believe that doing so may save a life.”

“That was quite the specific promise,” David noted with something between wariness and amusement.

Harry shrugged, “When a wizard gives an oath, it’s binding. Were I to break that, very bad things would happen to me. I could lose my magic or even die. I don’t make oaths lightly.”

David nodded in slightly amazed understanding.

“Well, I’m going to retire now. Remember, if you need anything, even directions, call for Kallus or just say ‘house-elf’ if you forget his name. Goodnight,” he nodded to them as a group, then apparated back to his house.

**o*O*o**

Over the next week, Harry had breakfast alone, then apparated to his quarters at the Arc Facility and appeared for work. When his shift was finished, he apparated home, changed clothes, then visited the Halles. He took them to his island for a proper tour of the _Phoenix_ and allowed Katerine a supervised exploration of the engine compartment so that she could assure herself that the ship would actually fly and make it to their destination. She was visibly impressed by what she found, though she didn’t understand all of it, since she was still quite young, her education not nearly as broad as Harry’s own.

Harry devoted some time to dusting off old potions books and doing some brewing for the family. He hadn’t felt sick in eighty years and his injuries healed within seconds, so he hadn’t had any need for healing potions, but the Halles certainly did. Over the course of the week, he managed to brew them enough potions to cure their lung disease and get them on the way to recovering from the prolonged malnourishment and mild dehydration.

They’d been very leery of the potions in the beginning, but after their lungs healed noticeably with just one dose, they stopped giving him cautious looks and happily took anything that he gave them. He even brewed some basic antiseptic salves, pain potions, and headache potions to make their lives a little more comfortable without access to any modern medicine.

Riyal, in particular, was probably happier than he’d ever been in his life. He took a swim in the tub every night, played in the gardens, climbed trees, and generally ran around and acted like a child in so many ways that just weren’t possible in the dying planet outside Harry’s wards. Riyal’s increased health, safety, and space had a very obvious impact on them all. Every time he laughed, Harry could see in the faces of all of the adults that their decision had been made by that alone, but he didn’t push them to give their answer sooner. He’d leave them the option to change their mind until their week was up.

The night that the decision was to be made, Alexander was the appointed representative, either because he was the oldest and head of the family or because he was closest to Harry’s age. Either way, they settled down together in Harry’s parlor and Harry cracked open a really good wine bottled in 1980 because he was feeling nostalgic. Alexander almost choked when he saw the date on the bottle and he looked almost afraid to drink it.

“I have thousands of bottles that are older,” Harry assured him, which was true, if a bit of an understatement. The old wizarding families had been particularly wealthy in galleons, books, dark artifacts, and liquor, wine especially.

Alexander seemed to consider that a moment before settling further back into his seat and sipping the wine appreciatively.

“Shall I assume that you’ve come to give me your family’s choice?” Harry offered after a minute.

Alexander gave him a small smile, “You already know the answer. We’ve never lived as well as we do here. And we’re all healthy for the first time in so long.”

Harry dipped his head in agreement and favored the man with a small smile. “I didn’t want to make assumptions. I am pleased with your decision. It would have been a very long trip with just me and the elves.”

Alexander returned his smile and they sipped their wine in silence for a while, both watching the fire crackling in the fireplace. “Thank you,” Alexander said at last.

Harry looked at him and lifted a questioning brow.

“For saving Katerine. For bringing us here. For making those potions for us. Even the best medicine doesn’t work that quickly.”

Harry nodded in agreement. “Mundane technology can do things that magic can’t, but healing is one area in which they are still a long way behind.”

Silence fell again, neither of them mentioning the Purge or the virus that the magical community had not been able to stop. Harry was sure they could have if they’d had more time – more warning. Too many of them were dead or dying before they could make any real progress. By the time they had the information they needed, they no longer had the most brilliant healers to use it.

“Honestly, I’ve never been much more than adequate when it comes to brewing potions,” Harry admitted nostalgically. “The man who taught potions at my school could have brewed a potion to heal the lot of you in one go. He was… an irascible son of a bitch, but he was unsurpassed in his field. …he died when I was seventeen,” Harry recalled solemnly. “He gave his life to help me defeat the dark wizard Voldemort – would-be tyrant of the magical world.” Harry shook his head and sighed briskly, “It never gets easier – losing loved ones – though it is disturbingly possible to grow accustomed to it. I suppose that that’s a skill I’ll need in the future.”

“You’re truly immortal?” Alexander asked curiously.

Harry nodded, “As immortal as it gets – at least as far as I can tell.”

“Yet you’re the only one. How did it happen?”

Harry shook his head, “Sort of by accident, really. There were three extremely powerful magical artifacts, created in the thirteenth century. Each artifact was powerful by itself and they changed hands many times through the centuries – that much I know for fact. One of these artifacts, a cloak of perfect invisibility, was passed down through the original family, and eventually came to me. I inherited it after my father died and came into possession of it when I was eleven. Another of the artifacts likewise was passed down through the original family, eventually ending in the possession of Voldemort, from whom I took it shortly before I killed him.” Well, Dumbledore took it, but Harry saw no need to bring the old coot into this conversation.

“That was an enchanted stone that could call the spirits of the dead.”

Alexander’s eyes widened dramatically.

“Oh, it didn’t bring them back to life,” Harry assured him. “It just pulled their spirits from the realm of the dead. They couldn’t touch the living or interact with it in any way except to speak to the one who possessed the ring. Those spirits no longer belong in this world and they cannot stay long or come often without experiencing something like pain that grows the longer they remain.” He knew that because he’d spent a lot of time summoning dead people after the Purge. “I avoid using it now. It’s not pleasant for the dead and not healthy for the living.

“Anyway, the final item was a wand – a magically crafted stick used to focus magical energy in spell-casting. Every magical human needed a wand to use magic effectively. I’m the only exception to that, and only because of who and what I became after I gained mastery of that wand – before I even possessed it. Well, the wand was exceptional because it was supposedly unbeatable. The master of the wand could not be defeated in a duel – unless, of course, the wand deemed him unworthy and chose the challenger instead, in which case the wand could actually betray its master. That’s a point that wasn’t really known. I only discovered it through research and through getting to know the item.

“So, I gained mastery of the cloak when I inherited it at eleven, the ring when I was seventeen, and the wand a few months later. That first night after I came to possess all three items, I woke to what felt like a fever. I was slightly delirious. The three items were there before me, floating apparently under their own power and glowing faintly with a color that I could not and cannot describe. The magic in the air was so thick that I could hardly breathe. And then the items glowed more brightly than ever until they seemed to be made of nothing more than magic itself. They absorbed into my skin and I felt like I was on fire. There was pain – a lot of it – and then I passed out.

“When I woke up – two weeks later – my magic had changed. I’d always been very magically powerful, but that power had grown exponentially. I could perform, with a thought, magic that I’d never learned to do with a wand. I never needed a wand again after that. In truth, when I tried, I found that they only slowed me down. That’s also when I gained the ability to heal from any wound in seconds, and my terrible eyesight just righted itself.

“Luckily, I didn’t stop aging at that point. Between growing up malnourished and spending a year in hiding, living out of a tent, I was a scrawny and sickly-looking boy then. No, my body continued to grow and mature until I was about twenty-five, at which point it just stopped. My hair and nails still grow, but my body remains youthful and healthy as the years pass. After letting that nuke go off right in front of me… I think that it did destroy my body utterly, but that my body simply put itself back together in the seconds following the explosion. The mushroom cloud was still growing above me when I came to…

“Anyway, the legend behind those three artifacts is that they were created by Death himself – as in the avatar or personification of Death or perhaps the God of Death. I don’t know. The story was so old it had become a faery story. Almost no one believed that it was actually possible to become Master of Death. I certainly didn’t. I simply thought them three very powerful and old magical artifacts. I know now that the legend was true.”

“So you are the Master of Death,” Alexander frowned thoughtfully. “Are you a God, then?”

Harry shrugged, “I don’t know. If I am a God, I might be the only one or the others just aren’t talkative because I certainly haven’t met any. I do have a connection with Death though, beyond being able to use the resurrection stone with a mere thought since it became a part of me. I can… feel it when someone dies. I can feel the spirit leave the body and transition through the veil. Whenever it happens near me or by my hand, I feel… stronger, as though a part of that passing energy was transferred to me.” He sipped his wine, then shrugged one shoulder. “It’s difficult to explain.”

Alexander nodded pensively and they sat in silence a while longer.

“Do you plan to take on any more passengers?” the mundane finally asked. “The _Phoenix_ is certainly large enough, and there are many more families such as mine who won’t survive until the Alliance lets them aboard their arcs.”

Harry nodded slightly. “Yes, I likely will take on more passengers. I won’t take just anyone in need, however. There may be some soft spots left in me, but I won’t extend them to every urchin. I’ve allowed the Alliance to know that Harry Potter still lives and is still a threat. I will probably take on more enemies of the Alliance. Not those who deserve to be punished for their crimes, but those who were justified in their actions – like your granddaughter.”

“Any idea of how many you plan to take?”

Harry shook his head. “I’d like at least a few dozen from mixed families or the lot of you will almost all die out before we arrive. I’d like to at least give the option for those like Katerine and Riyal to find someone to share their lives with over the voyage. I don’t want to bring much more than a thousand though. I’ve never been a great fan of crowds and the _Phoenix_ wasn’t built to be a human transport vessel. It won’t be difficult to make a few changes at this point to accommodate more people. Not when magic can mold the decks and bulkheads like clay. I’m not concerned for supplies either. A relatively small amount of food can be made into much more through magic. I don’t even need to do that as it is well within the capabilities of the house-elves. And I’m powerful enough that I need very little raw material to conjure and replicate most of the more mundane things, such as clothes and toothbrushes.

“I suppose I’ll have to put some thought into entertainment though,” he noted pensively. “You all won’t be keeping yourselves busy with magical research as I had planned to do with most of my time during the voyage. I’ll have to expand the exercise facilities, the galleys, the restrooms…” After a moment of thought, he nodded to himself and stood. “I should take you back and get started on modifying the layout of the _Phoenix_.”

Alexander nodded as he tiredly pushed himself to his feet and tipped back the last of his wine. “I was wondering, Harry, would it be possible for us to look at some of your books? I, for one, am very curious about magic and the magical world you speak of so often.”

Harry smiled and nodded. “I’ll send an elf over with some history and theory books that you can peruse at your leisure. I have multiple copies of most of those anyway.”

Harry apparated Alexander back to his family, gave instructions for an elf to bring them a list of books, then returned to his office and located the plans for the _Phoenix_. He was glad now that he’d gone a bit extravagant with the size. He wouldn’t have to sacrifice any of his cargo to accommodate a thousand passengers. It would also be nice if he could find more people like Katerine who could fill out a small crew to help with the routine operation and maintenance of the ship so he wouldn’t have to do everything. For the most part, the thing would fly itself, but it would require some attention over the years.

And he should probably see about getting a more comprehensive mundane library to educate the younger mundanes and those who would be born during the flight. And he should start stockpiling potions ingredients. With that many civilians on board, he’d need to brew very large batches of the basic potions, and probably keep a few of the less basic ones on hand for emergencies. He wondered if he could find a good doctor or two. It would be nice to have someone who could care for the simpler injuries and illnesses.

Ah, so much to do and only a decade in which to do it. At least he already had the facilities to house anyone that he picked up during the next decade so he wouldn’t have to worry about trying to let them live aboard the arc prematurely. Draconis alone could house more than five thousand people very comfortably and he had plenty of house-elves to keep them fed, clothed, and see to any other miscellaneous needs.

With his mental to-do list in order, Harry turned his focus back to the plans for the ship and started penciling in some alterations.

**o*O*o**

Harry’s last decade on Earth proceeded much as the previous two except that he now had a growing number of mundanes to look after on Draconis. His original thought had been to just sweep up anyone like Katerine who caught his eye. The more he thought about it though, the more he realized how advantageous it would be to have people of a certain skillset with him. With that in mind, he started targeting those people and actually recruiting them.

He didn’t bother with most of those employed by the GEA unless they were like Katerine and had families in trouble. He didn’t try to get anyone who didn’t have a good reason to say yes. Some of his targets had worked for the GEA – which employed or had employed pretty much all of the best and brightest on the planet – but were fired for various reasons. Some were convicts that he had to liberate as he had Katerine – those were, honestly, the most fun.

He was questioned less as time went on and his legend grew once more into fact among the press. They didn’t know a lot about him that was true or substantiated, but at least people believed that he was still alive, and the existence of magic was becoming more well-known. Unfortunately, the Alliance had decided to declare him some manner of demon through the press, so a few of those Harry tried to recruit were impossible to convince – the sort of people who’d rather be martyrs than accept his help. Those people and anyone else who refused him, he just obliviated or killed without much concern. The pathological ones didn’t survive. The human race could do with a lot less of that sort.

Eventually, he went into his stores and located an ancient artifact that had been created to bind mundane serfs to magical lords in times before the Founders. Basically, it was made to allow mundanes to swear magical oaths. Traditional magical oaths used the magic of the person speaking it to do the binding, which obviously would not work on mundanes. The artifact called upon ambient magic to do the binding. He wasn’t a hundred percent certain how it would work in space, unfortunately, but it was better than nothing. Though he did believe that everyone he’d recruited was happy with the opportunity to join him instead of going with the Alliance, he’d simply been through too much in his life to put too much faith in mundanes. And the more he gathered, the more difficult it would be for him to reliably monitor all of them.

And so, one by one, the mundanes swore fealty to him and he went about treating them exactly as he had before. The arc also progressed more rapidly than he’d expected. Once the mundanes were sworn to him, he trusted them enough to let the engineers help out without his standing constantly over their shoulders. He checked their work when they were done just to be sure it was done correctly, but he didn’t feel the need to monitor them lest they sabotage something. The binding stone would ensure that.

By 2085, Harry was a little disgruntled with himself as he’d managed to accumulate twelve hundred passengers with about three hundred being skilled and useful in his or her field and the rest being the friends and family that had bought Harry the allegiance of the skilled. It was more than he’d planned. Why did everyone have to have so damned many loved ones? Oh well, he was pleased with his collection. So many specialists would mean a very well educated future generation that landed on Elysium – and every single one owing him allegiance. He truly loved it when his Gryffindor and Slytherin sides worked together.

He never grew as close to any group of mundanes as he did to the Halles though. They were the only ones that knew the full story of his life, and had become almost like family to him despite them all being mundanes. The one to whom he was closest was undoubtedly Katerine. Though he’d been resistant to the idea for a long time, mostly due to the age difference, she’d eventually gotten him into her bed and he’d not wanted to leave since.

Katerine was… unlike Ginny in almost every way. He was glad of that though. He’d hate to compare his girlfriend to his late wife. Katerine’s personality was kind of Ravenclaw meets Slytherin though her loyalty to her family was unquestionable and she was obviously capable of acting like a Gryffindor to protect them if necessary. She was brilliant and devious within a background of calm and quiet that was very unlike Ginny. But she’d grown up in a world rapidly going to hell and her intelligence had made it apparent when she was quite young that she could be her family’s saving grace if she could get into the Academy. And she had. She’d also graduated with honors in just under three years. She’d gotten a good job and would have moved up the ladder fairly quickly. The problem was simply that her family had run out of time. They hadn’t been able to wait the few years it would have taken her to get into a place influential enough with the GEA to get her family into a better living situation.

She’d grown up believing that it was her responsibility to take care of her family, despite being the younger daughter and she’d done it to the exclusion of everything else. Harry was actually her first boyfriend that lasted more than a week. And though he felt a little odd to be anyone’s “boyfriend” at his age, not to mention never quite knowing how to handle her parents and even grandfather being younger than him, he enjoyed his time with her too much to end it. 

Though there was no religion to speak of on Draconis and no government beyond Harry himself, in 2084, he decided that he wanted to marry her, so he did. He picked a ring for her from the barrel of wedding rings collected from the magical world, where it had been tradition to pass wedding rings through the old families for thousands of years and most families had at least a dozen sitting around in vaults. He married them himself, since he was the only authority in their little society. They each wrote their own vows, though Katerine insisted that he promise only to remain faithful to her for the extent of her natural life. She knew that he would still be a young man when she died of old age and she didn’t want him to feel beholden to her when she was gone. She’d seen how loyal he was to his late wife more than fifty years after Ginny’s death. It was one of the things that had made her fall in love with him, yet also one of the major obstacles that had kept them from getting together for as long as they had.

And so they were married in the eyes of their community, which was really all that mattered. She agreed to take his assumed last name because she wanted to have children and neither of them wanted those children forever saddled with the extremely infamous Potter name. Anyway, it wasn’t as though his assumed surname wasn’t one to which he was entitled. He was essentially the embodiment of Death, after all.

In 2085, the _Phoenix_ left Earth bound for their new home. As far as the GEA was concerned, Henry de’Ath had simply disappeared without a trace.

Harry and Katerine’s first child was born in 2086. Considering that Katerine was already thirty-two, and that she wanted more children, they didn’t waste much time. Their second child was born in 2087 and the third a year later. All three were boys, and Katerine couldn’t have been happier. Harry was just relieved that enough time had passed that he wasn’t bogged down by memories of the children he’d lost upon looking at the children he had now.

In 2106, Harry became a grandfather again and by 2115, he was a proud granddaddy of nine beautiful children. 

It was truly amazing, what could happen when one threw together twelve hundred people on a very large ship completely cut off from everything beyond that ship for eighty years. Sex was evidently a popular pastime.

By the time the _Phoenix_ reached Elysium in 2165, Harry had twenty great grandchildren and twenty-eight great-great-grandchildren. He’d left Earth with just his wife and his in-laws and reached Elysium with a rapidly growing family of sixty direct descendants, almost half of which appeared older than he did.

The population aboard _Phoenix_ had also grown more than he’d expected. Excluding his own family, and allowing for the deaths of the older generations, the twelve hundred passengers had become nineteen hundred. Granted, that may have been helped along by good, healthy food, excellent medical care, including magical potions when needed, and fertility potions for those looking to have kids but experiencing difficulty after living in the pollution on Earth.

What pleased Harry greatly was that every single one of his descendants carried the magical gene. His three children, nine grandchildren, and twenty great grandchildren all carried the magical gene dominantly, meaning that they were magi. The closer the relation to him, the more reliably powerful they seemed to be, but there were some outliers even among his great grandchildren who were very powerful. The third generation were a fairly even split between the magical gene being dominant and recessive – meaning magi or squibs. Even the squibs exhibited varied degrees of talent though. There were two Seers already in the mix and almost every one of his descendants were Parselmouths, even the squibs. Apparently, that gift would not be rare in the magical world as populated by Harry Potter.

More mundane blood in the mix obviously meant fewer magically endowed children, but they all carried the recessive gene and they probably would for a very long time. Which would mean that there would eventually be more muggleborns. It was possible that the magical world could exist once more, probably due primarily to the fact that his magic was powerful enough to carry through several generations of intermixing with mundane blood.

The absolutely very best thing, however, was that he checked the blood of all of his descendants and found, without fail, that they were all born with an immunity to the Purge virus. It was possible that the mundane world could once again create a new strain, but he would be ready for it this time. He and several of his descendants were already working on a way to protect themselves from genetically targeted illnesses.

And Harry found himself becoming an amateur wandmaker as well as teaching all of the magical subjects to all of the new magical children. When his children were old enough, they started helping to teach and so-forth until there was a miniature school of magic aboard the _Phoenix_. The future had never looked so bright to Harry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If this looks suspiciously similar to a story of the same name over at ffnet, that's because it is the same story. No, I didn't steal it. I am the original author, now posting on this site. I did alter it slightly to minimize redundancy.


	2. Elysium

**18 April 2165**

Harry wasn’t sure if it was Elysium in particular or simply the fact that this planet had never known the contamination of mundane pollution, but this planet felt alive as nothing he’d experienced before.  It danced across his senses with a force that had sent him to his knees when the _Phoenix_ had first entered the atmosphere.  He’d since determined that every magical on the ship had felt it, though none as strongly as him.  Not that that was surprising.  None of them were connected to magic as strongly as he.

He stepped off the loading ramp cautiously and just managed to avoid ending up on his knees again when the sensation of the magic native to this planet slammed into him with even greater vigor.  The atmosphere had brought the first wave.  The air had brought a second.  Actually standing on the soil of the planet brought yet another.

He took a shaking breath and felt an involuntary shudder race through his body.  It may have been Fate or luck that he’d chosen this planet – personally, he’d come to believe that the two were one in the same.  He’d long ago given up caring.  He knew, in that moment, that he was _home_.  Nothing else mattered now.

He took a moment to mourn the planet that the mundanes had been allowed to butcher, and he gave a silent vow to Elysium then and there that it would not suffer such a fate so long as he lived – and for all he knew, he’d outlive the star system.  This planet would belong to the magical community and their families.  What technology found a place here would not harm the planet that was their home.

He had discovered after leaving Earth that the magic within him was not dampened in the cold emptiness of space, but he had discovered something that he’d never fully comprehended in the past.  All magicals drew a bit on the ambient magic of their world without even realizing it.  There were ways to direct one’s magic to harness ambient magic, but even without using such methods, they did to an extent.  In space, his magic had felt muted.  He’d tired quickly when using it, and had taken considerably longer to recover.  Even his innate ability to heal from any injury had been slowed.

It was a phenomenon to which he’d grown accustomed over the last eight decades in space.  That was, surely, part of the reason that he was feeling the ambient magic of Elysium so profoundly, but he was equally certain that the magic here was stronger than on Earth.  He suspected that that was related to the absence of mundane pollution and overpopulation, but he had no way to guess if it may have also been related to the planet itself or not.

“Dad?”

Harry turned around to find his eldest son making his way down the ramp slowly.  He looked understandably nervous, having never before experienced the sensation of wild magic.  Connor was seventy-nine this year.  Thanks to the magic in his blood, he could have passed for sixty among mundanes, but his age was showing in the slight stoop of his shoulders and his pure white hair.  Harry, on the other hand, yet looked a healthy twenty-five.  Katerine had passed thirteen years ago.  Ninety-eight was a respectable age for a mundane, and she’d been ready to go.  Harry had been less ready to see her go, though he’d had enough time to prepare himself for it this time.

Harry smiled at his son.  “Welcome home, Connor,” he said quietly as he turned away from the ship again.  The _Phoenix_ was situated at the edge of a very large grassy plain.  A massive forest bordered the clearing on two sides, a great lake on the third, and a river curling up into foothills and then mountains made up the last.

Connor stepped down from the ramp and Harry quickly caught his arm to prevent him from going down as Harry had almost done.  Connor may not be feeling it quite as strongly as Harry, but he’d never felt anything like it before whereas Harry had grown up with a watered-down version of this.

“Did Earth feel like this?” Connor asked in wonder.

Harry shook his head sadly, “Nowhere near this strongly.  The mundanes were well on their way to butchering the magic of that planet by the time I was born.  Elysium will be different.”

Connor nodded and his eyes roved around the plain.  “So…  Where do we start?”

“Walls,” Harry replied promptly.  He had had a few years to give this some thought.  “The landing will have frightened away most of the local fauna, but they will be back, and I’m certain that most of it will not be friendly.  I’m going to start by walling off just enough of this clearing for our population to comfortably move out of the _Phoenix_.  Warding worked into the walls should make it pretty much impenetrable to all manner of local fauna, both land and air-based.  Until we’ve had a chance to properly study what we’re dealing with, most of the population will be restricted inside.  Later, I’ll adjust the warding to let harmless birds and the like inside.”

“You going to need help with the walls?”

Harry smiled and tilted his head toward the sun, closing his eyes and drawing a calming breath.  “No.  No, I don’t think that I will.”  He was more than eager to discover just what his magic was capable of doing here.  “I should be able to get the walls up today or tomorrow.  I’ll modify my layout for the village to accommodate the geography here and we’ll get started on building after that.  Once the walls are complete, I’ll want to start working with you and your brothers on construction magic.  You lot can instruct the others.  We’ll have this village put together in no time.”

“I’ll let Elias and Marcus know,” Connor nodded.  With a smile and one last glance around, he shook his head faintly and headed back inside.

Harry looked toward the mountains again, then started away from the arc.  He moved off a couple thousand feet, putting himself a fairly even distance between the arc and the lake, then started pacing off a perimeter of where he wanted the walls to go.  As he walked, he scorched a line into the grass under his feet.  The line was more about his magic that would be left than a visible mark, as he wouldn’t be able to see it from very far off through the waist-high grass.

It took him what he guessed to be a little over an hour to make the circuit.  When he was done, he moved into the center of the area and he lowered himself down to his knees, flattening the grass a few meters around him with a casual wave of his hand.  He then leaned forward and gouged his fingers into the soil, letting his magic become better acquainted with the local magic of the planet.

“All right, Elysium,” he whispered when he felt his magic beginning to sing in tandem with the wild magic.  “Let’s see what you and I can do together.”

He then began to breathe quietly the ancient chant he’d learned just for this purpose.  It was an ancient magic, even by his standards, used in the days that simple stone walls had been able to stymie mundanes.  Of course, the spell had been designed to be used by a circle of no less than thirteen, but Harry did not doubt his ability.

The magic of Elysium rose to his call more profoundly than he’d expected even after learning how much stronger it was here than on Earth.  It filled him with a feral elation.  The air crackled around him with miniature bolts of lightning that struck him and the ground around him.  Rather than harming him, they only filled him further.  The air itself rippled with heat waves, though the warmth felt nothing but wonderful.  And then the circle of grass that he’d flattened burst into brilliant blue flame.

With his fingers still buried in the soil, Harry sent his magic and the magic he’d gathered around him out through the ground itself.  It raced away from him until it reached the line he’d delineated, at which point it dove into the bones of the planet and rose once more.

 

* * *

 

"Merlin..." Elise gasped.

Connor could only nod his agreement as he, Elias, Marcus, and the nine children they had between them watched from an observation window aboard the _Phoenix_ as his father knelt on the circle of flattened grass.  A simple spell on the window had magnified their view a bit so that they could observe more clearly what would undoubtedly be one of the most historic moments in the history of Elysium.  The day that Harry Potter raised the walls of their first village.

Even where they were, more than a thousand meters away and within the arc, they could all feel the swell of magic trembling around the first and most powerful magus of the new magical world.  More exclamations, most less refined than Elise’s, sounded around him as they watched the ambient magic around his father grow into visibility.  Multihued arcs of lightning lanced around the kneeling figure, and then brilliant blue flame burst from the ground and Samuel muttered a few choice words that would have had Connor chastising him under any other circumstance.  They seemed perfectly understandable at the moment.

The flame did not spread out from the circle Father had initially cleared around him, but it did spread inward.  In moment, his dad had been consumed.  Only a faint silhouette of his kneeling figure proved that he hadn’t been reduced to ash.

The atmosphere was tense in the observation room as the azure flames continued to burn without any obvious effect on that staggering display of magic.  Connor could not believe for a moment that his father was actually being harmed.  He was Harry Potter, after all.  He was as close to a God as Connor had ever known.  It was almost impossible to believe that _anything_ could ever harm him.

And then the ship started to tremble faintly.  Connor exchanged wary looks with his brothers before hastily focusing on the plain again.  The tremble grew stronger over the next few seconds, and a faint rumbling sound became audible just before a black wall burst up through the grass, along what he was sure was the precise line that his father had walked before beginning.  The entire thing rose simultaneously in a display of magical power more than merely humbling, even to Connor, who was among the most powerful magi alive.

Connor knew that he would definitely be reviewing this memory later, and it would be added to the book that he was writing.  It was actually a continuation of a book his mother had begun from her journals a decade before leaving Earth.  When Connor was gone, Elise would continue the tradition, and then her son Daniel.  They meant to make the series of books _the_ definitive accounting of the history of the new magical world and its patriarch, Harry Potter.

The wall stilled less than a meter above the tall grass, but it wasn’t done yet.  Gates grew right into the wall, one in the center of each of the four walls, and spires grew along each gate and at even intervals along the walls, each rising probably two meters above the wall itself.  The wards would be inscribed along those spires, Connor assumed from his own studies.  The physical height or strength of the walls would matter very little once the wards were in place.  In fact, the wall probably wasn’t necessary at all except to mark out a clear border.

With the wall being as short as it was, and their elevated position within the arc, their view of Father was not obscured as the growth of the walls and spires finally stilled and the feel of that magic began to ebb.  The azure flames around Father slowly diminished and finally extinguished, and Connor’s dad was visible once more, kneeling now upon what seemed to be a perfect circle of that same black stone that made up the wall.

Father rose then and rolled his shoulders like he was working out kinks, though he didn’t look like what he’d just done had tired him.  He then stepped off the three-meter wide disk of stone.  It wasn’t until he stepped down that it became apparent that it was actually risen to the height of Father’s knees.  The immortal mage turned a slow circle and then faced the disk again.  After a moment, he extended his hand toward it and something began to grow atop it.

Connor quickly smacked Elias on the shoulder and his younger brother started slightly, then increased the magnification spell so that they could clearly see what was happening.

A statue, Connor realized after a moment.  His father was raising a statue atop that disk of stone.  They all watched in silence as it took shape, and Connor’s eyes widened when he was finally able to identify what it represented.  Four magi in traditional robes stood at the edges of the disk, two men and two women, each facing toward one of the gates, each with a wand lifted toward it and a flat, foreboding stare upon their frozen faces.  Each statue was about half again as tall as Father.

A glow appeared within the circle of statues and Elias frowned as he added a complex charm to the magnification which allowed him to turn the angle so that they could see clearly what lay within.  From a broad stone basin in the center of the platform burned an azure flame identical to that which had risen while the walls were raised, though this one obviously much smaller.  Hovering above that flame was a sustained illusion.  A three-dimensional depiction of Elysium.

Elise nodded.  “This is our home now.”

“We’ll protect it,” Jamus, Connor’s youngest, agreed.

The twelve of them exchanged smiles of hope and excitement for the future.  For the first time in any of their lives, they had a real home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will take place in 2517, though you'll learn more about Elysium and Harry's family as we go.


End file.
